Jerome Rothenberg: from 'A Seneca Journal': 'Midwinter'
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[No longer readily available, this section of A Seneca Journal was an early attempt of mine toward a poetry of minimal means — observations & off-the-cuff translations during my first viewing of the Seneca Indian Midwinter ceremonies at the Allegany Seneca reservation in western New York State. While I’ve intercalated much of A Seneca Journal in later gatherings of my poetry I was never able to provide an alternative place for these poems, though I still find them crucial to the work that was then unfolding for myself & others. At this later point in my life they present me with a kind of personal dreamtime, a little mysterious in retrospect & in no sense the true Seneca story as such, but vital to me in figuring what it means, both then & now, to be living in a state-of-poetry.]
A man who was a crow was traveling. He didn’t know where he had come from or which way he was going. As he moved along he kept on thinking: “How did I come to be alive? Where did I come from? Where am I going?”
THE HEADS
(1)
big
(2)
bushy
(3)
flying
STIRRING THE ASHES
sun bear
moon buffalo
4 SONGS OF THE DAWN SOCIETY
(1)
dawn
(2)
dawn
(3)
dawn
(4)
dawn
THE BEAR ROBE
had no claws
THE BUFFALO ROBE
was headless
MIDWINTER VISION
paddles & ashes
EVENTS
fire a rifle
•
touch the sun
THE BIG HEADS
husk
shoes
husk
belt
husk
crown
bear
snout
THE BIGHEADS SEND A MESSAGE:
HELLO STAY CLEAN DONT BE CONFUSED DON’T STEP ON
THINGS WHEN MOVING (signed) YOUR UNCLES
THE BEAR
his paw up
to the sun
THE BUFFALO
head crowned
with flowers
BUFFALO PUDDING
like the mud
he stamps in
BEARDANCE
snort
snort
berries
BUFFALO DANCE
sniff sniff
mush
THE SYMBOL
pine branch
on men’s room wall above
the thermostat
•
pine branch on mask
THE FACES (1)
blew ashes
thru my hair
THE FACES (2)
whose big mask
cools it down
THE FACES (3)
with hanging little balls
of medicine
THE FACES (4)
had gambled for
the earth
FALSE FACES
& phony smiles
THE INSTRUMENTS (1)
pounders for corn
paddles for soup
THE INSTRUMENTS (2)
water
drums
horn
rattles
FIRE EVENTS
put out an old fire
•
kindle a new fire
•
do a war dance in the name of peace
(interlude)
speaking to Ham
was flicking my ashes into Leslie Bowen’s
soup pail
SIGNATURES (1)
their names on a paddle
SIGNATURES (2)
Emory Jacobs
Double Flower
SIGNATURES (3)
18–
96
SYMMETRICAL POEM
shaking the pumpkin
•
shaking the bush
•
shaking the jug
POUNDING THE WOODEN FLOOR WITH BROOMSTICKS
THE WOMEN
SANG SIX SONGS
going walking
in the middle of the room
a garden
I was alone
we all came back
& sat here
MIDWINTER MEMORY
Green Corn
SONG
****************************
*I*love*my************world*
****************************
****************************
*I*love*my*************time*
****************************
****************************
*I*love*my*growing*children*
****************************
****************************
*I*love*my*******old*people*
****************************
****************************
*I*love*my*******ceremonies*
****************************
PRAYER EVENT
dancing
OBSOLETE QUESTIONS
who’s got an old dream?
•
who’s got a new dream?
•
who’s got a white dog?
DREAM EVENT (1)
See something in a dream & tell it as a riddle.
Let someone guess the riddle, let him give the object as a gift.
DREAM EVENT (2)
Act out a dream.
Let everybody’s brains turn upside down.
THE PUMPKIN
has a lake inside it
THE BEADS
seen in my eyes –
with many colors
* dream-guessing riddles
MIDWINTER
when I cough
THE ANCESTORS
Handsome
Lake
•
Happy
Hoolihan
CONCLUSION
it was all I could do
•
it was all I had learned
•
it was all that there was
[N.B. A special boxed edition of Seneca Journal: Midwinter, “with objects & collages by the author & Philip Sultz,” was published by Singing Bone Press, St. Louis, in 1975. The cover of that edition appears above.]
Poems and poetics